As he gets ready for his Birmingham City team’s short trip to West Brom this weekend, Tony Mowbray is dealing with a number of fitness concerns.
He will be helped in doing so by Ethan Laird and Marc Roberts, who both played against Leicester City on Saturday and are now back to full fitness. Additionally, he will be allowed to add Andre Dozzell back into the starting lineup on match day after the player was cup-tied for the 3-0 loss at King Power Stadium.
Playing for the first time in two months, Laird lasted just 45 minutes before complaining of soreness and being replaced by Roberts at halftime. However, Mowbray downplayed any serious worries in his post-match remarks.
“I don’t think it’s a worry,” stated Mowbray. It has been a while since he played. I almost asked him if he was okay with my starting this game after our conversation the previous day. He worked out all week, but I now realize that watching a football game as I yell at him from the sidelines is a little more intense than just working out. He indicated he was starting to tense up, so we got him off the field after I felt it was appropriate to talk to him about it at halftime.
But the Blues manager had a tough week as three important players were added to the list of walking wounded.
Dion Sanderson, Cody Drameh, and Juninho Bacuna are all under suspicion since they were unable to make the trip to the East Midlands.
